FAMOUS GREENE COUNTY Women

According to Southern Women and Their Families in the 19th Century:

"Cornelia Phillips (1825-1908), daughter of James and Julia
Vermeule Phillips, married James Munroe Spencer in 1855 and went
with him to Alabama. At his death in 1861, she and her daughter,
Julia James "June" Spencer, came back to Chapel Hill. In the years
following the Civil War, Cornelia P. Spencer was instrumental in
rallying public support for the University of North Carolina,
particularly after its second closing in 1870. During her last
years, she lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her daughter
and son-in-law."

Julia Strudwick Tutwiler
(1841-1916) provided leadership of the
Greene Springs School in what is now Hale County from 1877 until the
1880s when the school burned and Julia left to head what is now the
University of West Alabama in Livingston. She helped to found
Montevallo College, she wrote the song "Alabama," now the state
song, while studying in Europe. Julia reformed the prisons and penal system
throughout Alabama. Julia Tutwiler was both educated and taught at
her father's school near Havana. More information can be found on
the
ADAH: Alabama Moments page for Julia Tutwiler. Julia
Tutwiler is in the
Alabama
Women's Hall of Fame as an educator and reformer.

Martha Strudwick Young (1862-1941) daughter of Elisha and
Anne Eliza Ashe (Tutwiler) Young, wrote seven books. Joel Chandler Harris (creator of Uncle Remus) said Miss Young was the best dialectician of the
African-American dialect of the time. Martha Strudwick Young was
born in Newbern, Alabama in 1862. When she was a young child, her
family moved to nearby Greensboro. In that small Black Belt town,
she learned Southern Black Legends and folk tales which she used
later as the basis for her fiction. She was educated at Greensboro
Female Academy, Green Springs School (begun by her grandfather,
Henry Tutwiler), Tuscaloosa Female Academy, and Livingston Female
Academy (later Livingston University, now the University of West
Alabama).